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Topic: Ruger Blackhawk 177 tuning help (Read 8298 times))

I just got my referb in from AGD today with the intentions of taking a good rifle and turning it into a great rifle as a project and learn more about the rifle. For $60 bucks, what a bargain! The only thing a see wrong with the rifle is a few dings in the tube and the stock is a little dirty. Anyways, I am not looking to spend more than what I spent on the rifle to turn it. I want to smooth out the action and take the twang out of the spring. What do you guys recommend I do to the rifle and what do I need? I already have some air venturi moly paste. Thanks!

Perform a standard cleaning and smoothing / polishing according to CDT's guide. Clean and hone the reciever. Polish the spring ends. Take the sleeve out of the piston and throw it away.

Take your new tophat and use 80 grit sandpaper on a flat surface to remove about an 8th of an inch from the bottom of it. Then find a washer that will fit on the tophat and matches its outer diam and polish it on both sides. Once the washer is polished simply put it on the tophat. You'll end up with what is shown in the pics below.

Get a new washer for the rear spring guide, polish it.

Install the new seal and tophat. Moly lube the contact points on the tophat, piston, spring ends, rear guide. Put it all back together. Will be a twang free tack driver if the barrel and trigger are without issues.

Just because you got it cheap doesn't mean you should scrimp on parts. A JM kit and seal makes a fine shooter. If you are not a power junkie, the GSX-OS kit will smooth it out very nicely. I get about 11 fpe in my Air Hawk.

Perform a standard cleaning and smoothing / polishing according to CDT's guide. Clean and hone the reciever. Polish the spring ends. Take the sleeve out of the piston and throw it away.

Take your new tophat and use 80 grit sandpaper on a flat surface to remove about an 8th of an inch from the bottom of it. Then find a washer that will fit on the tophat and matches its outer diam and polish it on both sides. Once the washer is polished simply put it on the tophat. You'll end up with what is shown in the pics below.

Get a new washer for the rear spring guide, polish it.

Install the new seal and tophat. Moly lube the contact points on the tophat, piston, spring ends, rear guide. Put it all back together. Will be a twang free tack driver if the barrel and trigger are without issues.

I was doing some chrony testing with the JSB 10 grain pellets and the Blackhawk was shooting them at 588 fps. A little too low then it should. I think the spring is defective and a replacement will be in order to fix that. Other thoughts could be the breach and piston seal. Any thoughts?

I was doing some chrony testing with the JSB 10 grain pellets and the Blackhawk was shooting them at 588 fps. A little too low then it should. I think the spring is defective and a replacement will be in order to fix that. Other thoughts could be the breach and piston seal. Any thoughts?

Almost certainly the piston seal damaged by the unaddressed burrs in the cylinder during original build.

Follow Paul68s' instructions and AVOID the ARH Apex seal! Get a seal from Vortek or an OEM seal.

Best course would be installation of a full RWS M-34 Vortek kit---either one will work.

Logged

Middle-of-the-woods, AR

"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light."--- Plato

Mine averages 788FPS @ 14.2FPE with 10Gr Air Arms heavies. A slightly heavier .130 spring from Vortek would put it at 15 FPE, which I'll do at some point. I think Microsalmo in the Review Gate has his AH doing 15 FPE with the .130 spring.

I have the ARH Apex seal and its worked very well. Spread is only 4FPS. I made the above changes, kept the stock spring, and did a standard hone and lube with a VERY light coat of tar on the spring, just enough to see it. I did not leave the tar stringy on the spring. The rifle has no twang at all, none. At 25 yrds it groups smaller than a dime. Basically one large ragged hole. Out to 50 yrds with no wind I can get 3/4".

I just got my referb in from AGD today with the intentions of taking a good rifle and turning it into a great rifle as a project and learn more about the rifle. For $60 bucks, what a bargain! The only thing a see wrong with the rifle is a few dings in the tube and the stock is a little dirty. Anyways, I am not looking to spend more than what I spent on the rifle to turn it. I want to smooth out the action and take the twang out of the spring. What do you guys recommend I do to the rifle and what do I need? I already have some air venturi moly paste. Thanks!

Your statements on what you have and what you plan are contradictory. You can't take a 'good' rifle that you bought at an el-cheapo price and expect to make a 'great' rifle out of it if you don't want to spend more than an el-cheapo price to do it.

I have 2 Blackhawks that are GREAT! One in .22cal. They both have had high quality internals installed and sport very high quality scopes, excellent sling mount systems and custom barrel breaks. I will put them up against any rifle in their class on the planet for accuracy, dependability, reliability and killing prowess, and I expect that they will serve me extremely well for the rest of my life. But they didn't get that way by going cheap.

I've got a total including $109.00 at purchase of about $160.00 in mine.

15 shots 25 yrds

Outstanding results! Did you just hone the rifle, lube the spring and replace the seal? I am looking at the vortek RWS 34 kit. For $50, it looks to be a good deal."Vortek 2gTunekit includes: 2g-Guides, high performance Blk-OP piston seal and Breech Seal, spring & seal lubrication."

I did a standard cleanup and lube tune. I outlined pretty much what I did in my earlier post. Only thing I did different far as the cylinder is concerned is go over it with 400 grit spun on a dowel to knock down the roughness of the crosshatching. Moly Lube only goes on the very ends of the spring. Very light tar for the rest of the spring. Can't stress enough removing the piston sleeve and replacing it with a tophat. Really helps to free up the spring and eliminate any possibility of the cocking arm getting hung up or jammed on the sleeve.